note afoken <p>If you want to know the name of a variable, you usually try to do something stupid. Most times, the answer is to use a hash instead. Also in this case, you can use a hash to get named parameters instead of positional parameters.</p> <p>Something like this:</p> <code> sub blah { my %args=(@_); foreach my $needed (qw( foo bar baz )) { exists $args{$needed} or die "blah() needs a $needed parameter"; } # .... } blah(foo => 42, bar => "don't forget this", baz => 'oh!'); blah(foo => 42, baz => 'oh!'); # <-- will die() </code> <p>Back to the "what's the name of the variable problem". What should a hypothetical <c>nameThatVariable()</c> function return for the following cases?</p> <code> $foo=42; print nameThatVariable($foo); # '$foo', of course. $foo=[ 42 ]; print nameThatVariable($foo); # still '$foo'. @bar=( 42 ); print nameThatVariable(@bar); # '@bar', of course. $baz=$foo=\@bar; print nameThatVariable($foo); # 'reference to @bar' or '$foo'? print nameThatVariable($baz); # 'reference to @bar' or '$foo' or '$baz' ? print nameThatVariable(\@bar); # 'reference to @bar'? print nameThatVariable(do { my $tmp=23 }); # '$tmp'? print nameThatVariable([ 23,45 ]); # ? </code> <p>Alexander</p> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-747201"> --<br> Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-) </div></div> 807025 807025